The IDN market is going through a funny phase at the moment. Local language speakers are only just beginning to understand what IDN is all about. Now we have Russian speaker trying to empty the wells of Russian IDN to bring them to sell at IDNForums. Similar story from China, although I do get enquiries from China. Most of them rather too low to be interesting.

This is actually a little perverse and is a bit like Taking Coals to Newcastle, as we would say in Britain, or Ice to the Eskimos as might be said elsewhere. These domains will only really be worth anything if the Russians themselves start to use them and put value on them. At the moment that is not happening, they are just buying them to flip them here. This has not only greatly increased the supply, but has also acted to weaken confidence, just as many buyers were apparently running out of funds anyway.

My advice for what is worth would be to build a portfolio for the day when they are going to be used and consider how you might monetize them in Russia. It is still early days, but browser support is imminent. Someone with good local knowledge should be able to develop domains to commercially exploit Russian Web traffic. If you and the other guys cannot do it, what chance the non-Russian speakers on here?

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Originally Posted by DomenForum.net

Anecdotes are little funny stories that are VERY popular in Russia, Ukraine and I guess all other European countries.

They are just like Japanese Haiku for Japan natives

The British are fairly big on Anecdotes, although I am not sure what potential is for commercial exploitation.

It is essentially true of any domain -- It is worth at most reg fee until it has been sold and the money is in the bank....

There is value in domains, otherwise we are wasting our time and money -- What is that value? As much as a potential buyer is willing to pay, no more and no less -- Until then, reg fee at most.

That is essentially only true of badly selected domains. A well-selected domain produces type-in traffic, and can be sold for 96 months income. That whole "buying domains hoping someone will one day buy them" idea is what made the domain speculation bubble burst and bankrupted many people.